Films 2009!

I like lists of ‘movies of the year’ but I rarely get round to sorting out my own - mainly because I can never remember what I’ve seen. But now, thanks to the Empire Mag ‘movie list of the year’, I’ve done one! I’ve only seen 29 movies in 2009! That’s not many is it!? But it means that I can give you a full 30 rundown, with commentary where I can be bothered lol
29 - The Spirit: 10 minutes in, I realised this movie wasn’t going to get any better. In fact I realised the same godawful look and tone was going to continue for the next two hours. And it did. Awful. Frank Miller, please stick to comics (well actually, judging from your last few comics, don’t bother with that either).
28 - District 9: I’m sorry, I know I’m in the minority (so to speak), but I just couldn’t stand this film. It’s good that it was innovative and the story was lively and fairly unpredictable, but I just couldn’t take to it. It was all too brown-looking, I didn’t understand why the aliens were called ‘prawns’, the main guy irritated me, it never felt like there were millions of ‘prawns’ in the camp, and I just didn’t understand why the ‘prawns’ couldn’t just stay on the ship.
27 - 2012: Stupid, annoying, insulting, imbecilic. John Cusack’s idiotic face. Lowest point: realising John’s son was called ‘Noah’ as the survivors are about to get on the ‘Arks’. My jaw dropped. Plus, would people’s mobile phones be working in a huge disaster like this? Especially when a tsunami is heading right towards Jimmy Mistry…
26 - Knowing: I didn’t hate this as much as most people, but I didn’t like the gratuitousness of the plane crash and subway disaster. Nasty.
25 - Haunting in Conneticut: Meh…
24 - Milk: It had some really nice, human moments, a few great characters in there, and the ending was affecting, but it was so sloooowwwwwwww.
23 - Outlander: Hmm…
22 - The Good The Bad and The Weird - However much I love ‘The Bad’ guy, this was just too long and uninvolving.
21 - Whiteout: Just completely uninteresting… The only good bit about this film was that I saw it in an empty movie room with my chum Marcus, which meant we could lark around and try different seats and also complain about the aircon being too cold.
20 - Blood: Meh… Reeeally bad CGI!!! Honestly, must do better! Couldn’t they see how crap it was?? I felt awful for the Blood guys tho when they’d make Blood annoucements on Facebook, and everyone would just slate the movie. Ouch.
19 - Terminator Salvation: Oh dear… I actually edited the official movie magazine for this film… I’d read the script and feared there wasn’t much to it… And I wasn’t far wrong. Some of the cinematography was good and some of the characters showed promise - and I’m glad they kept a lot of Helena Bonham Carter in it (the script seemed to change every five minutes) , and the Arnie bit was good, but …it felt a bit lacklustre. It also didn’t help that I had gone on a really weird diet that week, and my blood sugar decided to crash during the movie making me go all feverish and what-not, so it wasn’t a pleasant experience!!!
18 - Funuke: One of the Japanese movies I saw with my lovely Japanese classmates. This was okay - a bit drawn out, and it was set in the Japanese countryside which was gooorgeous…
17 - Push: Hmm nothing special… but nice to see Hong Kong…
16 - The Proposal: Sweet…
15 - Zombieland: Hmm… meh… The girls were annoying…
14 - Bruno: Kind of funny, very shocking… Had a very entertaining lesbian in front of me at the cinema providing really stupid, but funny, commentary. “He’s fallen out the window bwa ha ha”.
13 - Wolverine: Origins: Not as bad as everyone seemed to say, but I didn’t really understand why they had to dick around with the comics mythology so much.
12 - GI Joe: Well it was really really stupid, but it did entertain me. Honestly though, that ‘clever plot point’ where they come up with a Celtic phrase to make the Scottish guy’s plane work - ouuuch. Storm Shadow was very sexy though.
11 - Paranormal Activity: Well it kept me entertained and hiding behind cushions, but there wasn’t really much to it.
10 - Thirst - Korean films are getting an excellent reputation (well-deserved), although I think they need to be careful on the lengthiness and quirky factor. Thirst didn’t grab me as much as previous Korean movies, but was worth it for the final 10 minutes alone. The cinema I saw it at actually showed the movie reels in the wrong order (trainee projectionist, apparently), but I just thought it was part of the quirky factor… I still managed to follow it though.
9 - Watchmen: First time I saw it, I felt it was too violent and depressing. It grew on me more the 2nd time though. Fab opening sequence… I liked Silk Spectre, and Rorshach was amazing.
8 - Inglorious Basterds: Very dark and disturbing, but clever and entertaining. Not one of my fave QTs, but still got it on DVD.
7 - Gran Torino: Sob…
6 - Slumdog Millionaire: Weep…
5 - Let the Right One In: Just such an amazing ‘feel’ to it. And that final scene in the swimming pool - wow.
4 - Benjamin Button: Spellbinding…
3 - Star Trek: Just so entertaining - a *good* blockbuster (yeah, it’s possible, Mr 2012). Had me laughing, had me crying, and I loved the whole crew and their hopefulness and optimisim - it just came across in waves. Nice to see Sulu actually get something to do too!
2 - Departures: A Japanese movie about a guy who joins a funeral company. It’s just so gentle and moving. I had tears rolling down my cheeks.
1 - Tokyo Sonata: Such a simple movie - about a dysfunctional family - but it works so well. So well acted, so moving, so engaging. Again, had me in tears. Wonderful.

On another note, I think my real favourite film this year was an old one that I just happened to catch on DVD. A Bittersweet Life - so good.